My new variety of lily is classified botanically as a Lilium hybrid; commercially, as an upright Asiatic hybrid, division I-A in the Horticultural classification of the Genus Lilium adopted by The Royal Horticultural Society of London.
My new variety of lily plant originated as a seedling selected from a group of seedlings among the seedling beds of test crosses of Oregon Bulb Farms at Sandy, Oreg. The cross was made in 1968 and the lily plant first flowered in 1970.
The cross was made during a breeding program having as its objective the production of brilliantly-colored, upright flowering lily cultivars which would perform well when forced into flower under glass throughout the year, in addition to meeting the requirements of vigor, disease resistance and rapid natural propagation under field cultivation. Cultivars were sought which would be disease resistant, virus tolerant, and not overly susceptible to leaf scorch and bud abortion upon forcing under glass.
The cross was made between the seed parent `Harmony` (not patented) and the pollen parent `Red Carpet` (not patented).
My new lily plant is characterized by rapid natural propagation under field conditions and by vigorous and healthy growth when forced under glass without excessive leaf scorch and bud abortion. It shows the uniform qualities of growth to maturity when forced into flower throughout the year. Its buds are exceptionally large and bright orange in color.
The flowers of my new lily plant are particularly distinctive. They are characterized by the exceptional breadth and thickness of the tepals and by their intense bright orange color.
Lilium `Harvest` most closely resembles the older cultivar `Harmony`, which is its seed parent. However, it differs from it, and is superior to it, in its more intense orange color, its exceptionally large and bright orange colored buds, and by its broader and thicker-petaled orange flowers. When forced under glass, it shows uniformly good performance in that its flowers all bloom at approximately the same time.
My new variety of lily plant has been asexually reproduced by me and under my direction at Sandy, Oreg. Successive generations produced by bulb scale propagation and natural propagation from bulblets have demonstrated that the novel and distinctive characteristics of my new variety are fixed and hold true under asexually propagation from generation to generation.